


Eagle, Globe, and Anchor

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Military, Military Background, New York City, POV Frank Castle, USMC, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:00:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: After the events of Season 1, Frank Castle tries to find meaning in Pete Castiglione's life by returning to his first family. It turns out a little more involved than that.
Relationships: Frank Castle & David "Micro" Lieberman
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Eagle, Globe, and Anchor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kameiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kameiko/gifts).



> I hope this is within the bounds of what you asked for as I could not in good conscience write you Blip fic in this time of plague. Frank's military history's a fundamental part of who he is, but the show left out a fair bit that would have lingered along with the lethal skills. Marines are Marines even when they are retired Marines. It's both charming and annoying. :) 
> 
> It's a lot shorter than I'd hoped -- blame the flu -- but I hope you enjoy.

They gave him his freedom, but trying to build a life for himself outside the Punisher was harder for more reasons than that he didn't have a credit history. He didn't have _anything_ that meant something to him, no organizing principle, and he'd never come closer to ending it all than sitting in the backyard of his little basement apartment in Howard Beach after an honest week's work with an honestly-earned beer in front of him.  
He'd lost his family three times over: Maria and the kids, Billy, the Corps. Three strikes and you're out. 

Forget de Grom, the Mets' shitty bullpen coulda done the job. He had nothing anymore and it was making a mess of him. 

The people, that much folks like Madani understood. Even Billy and he could appreciate how hard that was for her. 

("He fucked us both and in the end it doesn't matter how literal or figurative it was, Castle. He was inside us and he took what he wanted and despoiled the rest. He raped us.")

But the Corps… Madani's too Upper East Side to get that. 

There's no such thing as an ex-Marine, but he felt as close as possible to being one cut off like he was now. He'd joined up as a stupid kid and he'd come out of boot on his way to being a grown-ass man. Still stupid in the way Boots are always stupid, but with a fucking _purpose_ and a sense of belonging and his blood had sung with it. He had a family, one that understood him the way his parents, God bless them in heaven, had never been able to. He had expectations for himself because other people had them for him - and boot had shown him for the first time in his life what consequences of letting people down really felt like. He never wanted to feel that way again. This recruit does not want to go home, Sir!

He'd lived for the Corps, for being a Marine, and Maria had always understood that. She'd never asked him to give it up, to find something to do closer to her family so that she didn't have to be so lonely, so that she didn't have to raise kids by herself because he was gone all the time on deployments or training or schools, so she could have a job she wanted or a life she wanted and that she'd always deserved. She supported him going mustang even if it would take him away from her for almost all of her second pregnancy; Lieutenant Castle showed up at the hospital to meet the baby Staff Sergeant Castle had helped create. Maria kept making jokes about that, about a butterbar Jody trying to sweep her off her feet while her NCO husband was away. She hadn't liked being a milspouse very much, hadn't like the politics of the FRGs and the PCSes and the 'hurry up and wait' and the commissary never having the kind of canned tomatoes she liked and the phone calls that were terrifying because Someone Had Died But We Don't Know Who and the waiting for the CACO and the chaplain to ring someone's doorbell. She hadn't liked a lot of things, but she loved him and she'd put up with it all until he'd filed his papers. When he'd gotten out, it had been because he couldn't live with what he'd done to his honor and the Corps's, and she'd made him sign up at the VFW up in Flushing because that was the one with the most Marines and she wanted him to be among his people -- among the people he'd still wanted to be like and be with. She'd call up Curtis for a barbecue and tell him his dumbass Marines needed him - "Corpsman up!" she'd yell into the phone and Frank would always laugh at it because he could hear Curtis grumping on the other end of the line. 

Curtis needs his own help now and Frank didn't want to put this shit on him when he still couldn't walk with his own burden. 

Sarah Lieberman looked a little surprised to see him, but not the bad kind. 

"I'm glad you came," she told him, gesturing for him to throw his coat on the back of the couch as she went into the kitchen. 

"You don't know why I'm here yet," he pointed out. He didn't make a joke about nobody ever being happy to see the Punisher. Not with Sarah, who'd seen him as a good man first and, having learned who he really was, refused to change her opinion. 

"You need something, Frank. That's why you're here," was the reply as she came back with a glass of water with ice in it and handed it to him. "And you trusted us enough to ask for it. So, I'm glad you're here." 

He had nothing to say to that, not when he felt guilty for showing up after so long with no contact and now only to ask for a favor. 

David was downstairs in his lair, which looked an awful lot like the one on Roosevelt Island and not in the good way and he smiled broadly when Frank told him that. 

"It's comfortable and familiar and has excellent feng shui. And you try building a Faraday Shield that _Architectural Digest_ will approve of in a way that won't have DHS banging on your door with a no-knock warrant. Is that for me?" 

Frank held the water closer to his chest. "No. Go get your own." 

"And leave you alone with all this?" David scoffed, then turned serious. "What do you need?" 

"A DD-214," Frank answered with a frown, embarrassed in an entirely different way than he'd been with Sarah. 

David just looked confused. "Why? That's like the last thing anyone needs when they're setting up a fake life. Even someone like you, who practically has 'USMC' tattooed on your forehead. See, now that's a question I've always wanted to ask. Why don't more Marines have that? I have seen some pretty stupid Marine tattoos, but never that one."

"It's against regs," Frank answered, surprised he'd forgotten how David's thoughts pinged around the room like a small caliber ricochet. "Tattoo shops near bases know that."

"Hunh," David mused, like he hadn't expected the answer to be so practical. "So why do you need a DD-214?" 

It took Frank a beat to answer. To confess. "I want a VA card. I want to join a VFW."

David sat back in his chair. "There cannot be a single VFW post in the Tri-State area that will not hook you up with a beer at membership prices just for walking in the door as Frank Castle, so either you're being unusually shy about your accomplishments or you're living in the Midwest somewhere where they actually do the background checks." 

Frank sighed and David doubled-down on the smug grin. And waited. 

"I just… I want to be a regular veteran who doesn't want to talk about the shit they saw in the sandbox," he said when David didn't relent. "I miss my brothers in a way I didn't used to and I just want to be…" he trailed off with a one-armed shrug. "I miss it."

David's expression said that he understood in a way maybe you had to be dead to the world to do so. He nodded once, spinning in his chair to face the wall of monitors. 

"Okay, so we'll go ahead and give you the full package. VA card, DFAS account, the works. You want a pink ID from Defense or a blue one? You got a backstory you made up or are we doing that now? I don't think we should change too much - too hard to remember and anyone you actually served with is going to know who you are." 

It took them an hour to construct a false military history for Pete Castiglione and the paperwork to backstop it. It was more or less his own service record, including making him a prior enlisted officer, but they kept him out of MARSOC and gave him a few years in the reserves instead. Micro - and it was impossible to think of David as anything but Micro as his fingers flew over the keyboard and the screens filled with numbers and websites that the Pentagon no doubt thought secure - had five different agencies sending cards and documents to his apartment in Howard Beach, plus what Frank suspected was a direct deposit pension account despite the firm denial. 

"There isn't enough money in the world for you to pay me back for not making you go down to Fort Hamilton's ID section," David said as they watched the laminator slowly spit out his new military retiree card. "Although Bay Ridge isn't as godforsaken as Howard Beach. I didn't think anyone lived there anymore. Didn't Sandy wipe it off the face of the planet?" 

When they came upstairs, the ID still warm in Frank's hand, Zach was setting the table for five. "You're staying, right?" 

Sarah, in the kitchen, looked so completely unrepentant that David started laughing. 

When it was finally time to get going - he had work in the morning, which amused everyone - David stopped him on the way down the front walk. "We don't have the stupid tattoos and can probably get a high enough ASVAB score to at least get into the Air Force, but the beer is cheap here, too, Frank. And nobody's gonna ask you about the shit you saw in the sandbox. But you and I, you and _we_ went through some different shit together and if we can't be your brothers, we can probably pass as distant cousins. You've still got family that doesn't bark on command, too. Don't forget that." 


End file.
